Skunks are the epitome of animals that are beautiful on the outside, but ugly within. Long ago there was a beautiful woman who was obsessed with her own good looks. When the great spirit Turtle tried to flatter her, she behaved in an arrogant and haughty manner, rediculing his homely appearance. For this slight, Turtle transformed her into an animal that would reflect the contradiction between the girl's appearance and her ugly inner reality. That animal was the first skunk. [1]

When Trickster visited Skunk he found him to be very affable and good natured. To rustle up a meal, skunk put out acorns and called the deer to feed on them. Then he suddenly turned and broke such foul wind that the deer collapsed dead en masse. Trickster was impressed, so Skunk fixed his anus with four rounds of flatulence ammunition. However, Trickster did not trust Skunk, and began test firing his ammo. Finally, he used it all up, only to discover that Skunk had not been fooling him after all. When Skunk paid Trickster a visit, Trickster tried to use the same hunting technique that Skunk had used so successfully, but despite a great effort, he only managed to soil himself and drive the deer away. So Skunk repeated his performance, slaying enough deer to keep Trickster's family in venison for some time. [4] Here the aversive character of the skunk's inner nature is seen for what it really is: a form of ammunition. The apparent agreeable nature of Skunk is what causes the deer to trust him. Their fatal mistake is to overlook the contradiction inherent in Skunk's nature. Trickster falsely thinks Skunk to be unreliable, but this is patently false: the skunk's ammunition is, as most anyone can testify, very reliable, and he can be counted on to use it effectively. Skunks only use trickery out of necessity, and not in the capricious manner of Trickster.

Once Trickster induced a skunk to dig a tunnel for him in the side of a hill. As the skunk dug furiously, Trickster stood behind her watching. Her tail was up in the air and her vulva exposed, so he said aloud, "A nice round vulva!" "What did you say?" she replied, but Trickster claimed that he said something that sounded very similar. Things went on like this until she finished her tunneling. [5] Here the contradiction between what it sounds like someone is saying and the impolite remark that they are really tendering, is a reflection of the contradiction inherent in the attractiveness of the skunk versus her offensive reality. The vulva that mesmerizes Trickster is as close to the organ of ultimate unattractiveness as the sound that Trickster claims to be saying is to what he is really saying. Trickster's attraction to skunks lies in the essence of the trick itself: it appears on the surface to be one thing, but in reality is something quite different, and in the context of practical jokes, something unpleasant for the victim; however, for all those who escape becoming a victim of the trick, it is clothed in the pleasure of mirth. The skunk's weapon is very much like a practical joke: it is not lethal, yet renders its victim so repulsive as to be the object of humor.

Turtle's attraction to the skunk is rather different. The Hotcâgara use Turtle claws for arrowheads, which makes Turtle a shooter. In another way, this is just what the skunk is, an animal that hits its victim effectively at a distance with something very unpleasant that originates from its own body. Nevertheless, Turtle created the skunk out of an enemy. Thus the skunk can stand as an insulting image of the character of an enemy, who may look attractive, but who harbors a deadly inner nature that expresses itself through a form of shooting. Thus whenever a Hotcâk warrior kicks a dead enemy on the field of battle, and thus counts coup with his foot, he is entitled to wear the fur of the skunk as a legging to symbolize his triumph over the enemy. [6]

Links: Turtle, Hare, Trickster.

Stories: featuring skunks as characters: The Skunk Origin Myth, The Bungling Host, Trickster and the Mothers, Hare Recruits Game Animals for Humans, The Boy and the Jack Rabbit.

Notes:

[1] Keeley Bassette (Waterspirit Clan) and Rita Sharpback (Buffalo Clan), "How Skunks Came to Be," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 93.

[2] Paul Radin, "Short Tales," [unpublished] Winnebago Notebooks, Winnebago IV, No. 7i (American Philosophical Society Library) #17, "The Boy and the Jack Rabbit."

[3] Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1948) 111-113.

[4] Paul Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books, 1956) 41-49.

[5] Radin, The Trickster, 28-31.

[6] Kinsey, Juliette Augusta (Magill), 1806-1870. Wau-Bun: The "Early Day" in the North-West. (Chicago: R.R. Donnelley and Sons Co., 1932 [1867]) 63.